Just a week earlier he looked like he would be the reason if not the reason, the Dodgers failed to win the World Series.
On Sunday night, he became the reason they could.
In a 9-0 victory over the New York Mets in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, Jack Flaherty delivered a performance that will immortalize him in these parts if his team is paraded down Sunset Boulevard early next month.
Flaherty was Sandy Koufax.
Flaherty was Fernando Valenzuela.
Flaherty was Orel Hersziser.
He limited the Mets to two hits in the final seven innings, consecutive singles by Jesse Winker and Jose Iglesias in the fifth inning.
Read more: Plaschke: 33 rounds without points! Dodger pitchers focus on history in Game 1 victory
The number of innings Flaherty threw was as important as the number of runs he allowed because it spared manager Dave Roberts from using any high-leverage reliever outside of Daniel Hudson's team.
Result: The Dodgers will be able to play bullpen action in Game 2 on Monday.
A similar pitching plan resulted in the shutout of the San Diego Padres in the previous round. When the Dodgers head to New York for the middle three games of this best-of-seven series, they could do so with a two-games-to-no advantage.
“To get seven runs in a long streak was huge for us,” Roberts said.
The performance also had significance on a personal level for Flaherty, who was born and raised in the Los Angeles area.
Flaherty was six months old when he went to his first game at Dodger Stadium. Throughout his childhood, he took part in as many as 20 games a season. It was in this stadium that he took Harvard-Westlake High to the CIF Southern Section Division I championship.
The Dodgers acquiring him from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline has brought him a full-circle moment. The Mets' shutout on Sunday night was something that “truly can't be put into words.”
“When I was warming up, I saw some family there and I had gone to games with them before,” Flaherty said. “So it kind of allows you to relax a little bit.”
Seven days after he allowed four runs in 5 ⅓ innings in his first postseason game for the Dodgers, Flaherty had one of the best starts of his eight-year career. He scored six. He only passed two.
“It was a pitching clinic,” Roberts said. “When we got the lead, he did a great job of following the guys and attacking.”
When Flaherty returned to the bench midway through the seventh inning, he was hit on the butt by Shohei Ohtani. He was covered by Roberts.
“Really Jack did a great job,” Ohtani said.
Later, Flaherty had a moment of pinching Clayton Kershaw by wrapping his arms around him.
Flaherty grew up admiring Kershaw, so much so that when he thinks of the Dodgers' postseason pitching tradition, he doesn't think of Koufax, Valenzuela or Hershiser.
“There is only one answer: Kersh,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty continued: “Regardless of what people want to say about his postseason numbers, he had a hell of a lot of good numbers. He was an absolute stud throughout his career.
“I look back at all his starts where he did a phenomenal job of getting the ball on a three-day rest, and then he went out there and, no matter what, he still played for six or seven innings. This guy is second to none.”
To Flaherty's point: The last Dodgers pitcher to have an extended start without a score in the postseason was Kershaw, who eliminated the Milwaukee Brewers in eight innings in the 2020 wild-card round. The Dodgers won the World Series that year.
“Hugging him afterwards and letting me know it was a really good job was something special and something that can't be done,” Flaherty said.
Like the hug he received after the game from his mother, Eileen.
“It's hard not to smile about things like this,” Flaherty said.
Suddenly, the Dodgers' rotation doesn't look combustible — or “terrible,” as I wrote in last week's column. Suddenly, the Dodgers have a pitching staff that hasn't allowed a run for the last 33 innings, tying the postseason record set by the 1966 Baltimore Orioles. Suddenly, between Flaherty and NLDS hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers look like they might have the necessary starting pitcher to not only win this round, but the World Series as well.
On Sunday evening, Flaherty fulfilled his dream. The Dodgers and their fans grew closer to them.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
